Green Star Polyp Help

New Member

Hi all, I'm new on here and am looling for some help with my nano tank. My GSP is acting up and I'm hoping someone has had a similar experience or can give me info and some pointers.

I have a 5 gal. reef tank with a 4 small frags (clove polyp, frogspawn, zoanthids, and another i haven't identified) and one larger GSP colony, 6 bumblebee snails and three blue leg hermits.

The tank is relatively new and all the stock was put in almost 3 weeks ago. We're really on top of parameters and doing lots of water changes (with Imagitarium ocean water).

All corals have been doing good, clove polyps are growing a lot, the 2 heads initially on the frag have at least doubled in size and more have popped up, the zoanthids have grown a lot too, and the GSP was originally doing great. It took a couple days for the entire colony to open up but it did and seemed to be adjusting much faster than the other frags. It looked fine until several days ago when we moved it away from the next rock to prevent it from spreading and since then it hasn't opened back up, a few heads were out initially and the green was visible at the tip of some branches but now nothing at all and the tip of some branches now seem duller in color.

It can't be the snails or hermits disturbing it since they were all over that rock when we first got it and it was never bothered by them. And they're supposed to be really hard so I don't think water quality would be affecting them too much especially if the other corals are just fine and growing...

I've noticed a few growths on the colony but I don't know enough to tell what they are. I'll attach photos once I can get it to work...in the mean time ill try to describe them:

- white structures in a single spot that look almost like the 'petals' of a star polyp but they're completely white, have varying lengths, and are coming out of the mat (these are definitely new as I don't recall seeing them until today)
- what looks like a little tiny polyp but is coming out of the rock and not the purple mat and has no color
- an orange spongey substance in between branches that doesn't seem to have grown but was always there
- Some transparent thin filaments sticking up out of narrow branch structures among the coral branches
- a thick white tubular structure semi-coiled between branches, about 1 cm long

Do any of these sound like potential parasites?

The rock also came with red algae on it and that seems to be growing a bit, it's covered with green algae in some areas, and I've seen some orange algae (I guess) that look like little stars flowing in the current.

I hope someone can give me some pointers and I apologize for the long post and if there's obvious stuff that I don't know, my boyfriend has been doing this for years but I'm new to the hobby.